September 24, 2017

UK gay rights organization Stonewall has launched a nationwide campaign aimed at galvanizing LGBTQ allies in the fight against hate crimes and discrimination, as new research exposes shocking levels of abuse directed toward sexual and gender minorities in Britain.

“Come Out For LGBT,” the London-based charity’s first major campaign in a decade, is calling on passive supporters of LGBTQ rights to get involved in a range of activities designed to tackle mounting intolerance.

An image from the "Come Out For LGBT" campaign, launched by UK gay rights group StonewallCourtesy of Stonewall

“Believing in equal LGBT rights is great, but we want to see people take this to the next level, whether that’s something big or small. It could mean attending a pride event and cheering, or sharing a social media post, or even just calling out homophobic language like ‘that’s so gay’ when you hear it at school or work," Stonewall’s senior communications officer, Matt Horwood, told NBC News.

“Come Out For LGBT" is reaching the public through an online campaign video and images displayed on buses, billboards and other public spaces, with publicity companies providing free media space.

The charity also created campaign materials that can used in faith communities, workplaces and schools. “Those groups can use the message of the campaign to help impact positive work for LGBT equality in their communities,” Horwood said.

Meanwhile, Arsenal and Manchester United are among several leading English Premier League soccer teams lending their support to the campaign in a further bid to stamp out the homophobic abuse still rife in the British game.

“LGBT fans want to know that their favorite players and clubs support them back and do not agree with homophobia, biphobia or transphobia,” Horwood said.

“Come Out For LGBT” coincides with the release of a Stonewall report revealing hate crimes against LGBTQ people have shot up by almost 80 percent across England, Scotland and Wales since 2013.

The findings, based on a YouGov survey of more than 5,000 LGBTQ people in Britain, found 16 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual people have experienced a hate crime or incident in the last 12 months, up from 9 percent four years ago. More than 40 percent of trans people have been targeted because of their gender identity in the past year, the report showed.

Victims recounted cases of intimidation, harassment, physical assault and unwanted sexual contact, with those from ethnic minority backgrounds, young people, disabled people and those belonging to non-Christian faiths disproportionately affected.

Abebi, 34, from Scotland, told researchers she had been attacked by two women as she tried to use the bathroom in a bar. “They began pushing me and shouted that I was in the wrong bathroom and pointed out that this was the ladies’ bathroom. I told them that I knew which bathroom it was and I was in the right place, but they persisted. Since then I avoid public toilets wherever possible,” she said.

Four in five LGBTQ victims who experienced a hate crime or incident chose not to report it to police, according to the findings.

Stonewall, while acknowledging the huge strides Britain has taken in recent years to protect LGBTQ rights, called the report's findings “stark,” with many respondents admitting to being fearful of walking down certain streets or holding their partner's hand.

“While we’re aware and appalled at the fact that anti-LGBT hate crimes remain an enormous problem for LGBT people in Britain, the extent to which our latest report proves this did come as a shock,” Horwood said.

“Come Out For LGBT”, backed by celebrities, sports stars and members of Britain’s armed forces, is an extension of Stonewall’s iconic “Get Over It!” campaign launched in 2007 to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in the classroom.

The charity took its name from the famous riots in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, which have largely been credited with igniting the modern global LGBTQ rights movement.

June 20, 2013

I am posting a letter from someone who is fighting against gay bashing every day. City Council President Christine Quinn. I have written many times that one of the protections the NYC gay community needs to protect it self is to stop looking like victims. How do you do that? One of the ways is to know how to protect yourself. Don’t be a victim be preared=adamfoxie* library

I know that if someone where to attack one of my twin niece sisters at least one of their balls will be missing! They are Nine years old now but have been taking Kung Fu, Karate, etc. Since they were five. The point is that they can defense themselves up to a point.

I know self defense can take a financial toll. Now with the help of Christine Quinn and the City Council that can be mitigated.
This is the letter:

Dear New Yorker,

As you may know, there've been a series of attacks against members of the LGBT community in our city over the past several months.

In response, the NYC Council and the Center for Anti-Violence Education have teamed up to offer free self-defense trainings around the City to help provide New Yorkers with the tools and prevention strategies they need to protect themselves.

The following additional classes have been scheduled for June and July:

Queens: Co-Sponsored by the Speaker, the LGBT Caucus, and Queens Center for Gay Seniors, Make the Road NY and Generation Q

Sunday, June 23 rd

2-4 pm

Renaissance Charter School

35-39 81 st Street, Jackson Heights

Brooklyn: Co-Sponsored by the Speaker, Borough President Marty Markowitz, the LGBT Caucus, Brooklyn Community Pride Center, Circle of Voices and GRIOT Circle

Wednesday, June 26 th

6-8 pm

Brooklyn Borough Hall Community Room

209 Joralemon Street

Bronx: Co-Sponsored by the Speaker, the LGBT Caucus, and the LGBT Community Service Center of the Bronx

Thursday, July 18 th

6-8 pm

SCAN Mullaly Academy

Mullaly Park, 164 th Street between Jerome and River Avenues

Staten Island: TO BE ANNOUNCED

If you're interested in taking advantage of one of these trainings, please RSVP by emailing events@council.nyc.gov or calling 212-788-5613 and indicate which class you would like to attend.

March 26, 2013

In honour of its 100th anniversary, the Anti-Defamation League has launched a powerful campaign called “Imagine a World Without Hate.” An 80-second video imagines a world without racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism by portraying as still alive famous figures who were the victims of hate.

Chilling imagery shows an elderly Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank, David Pearl, Matthew Shepard, all set to Imagine by John Lennon who was also silenced by hate.

March 6, 2013

Several videos from the ubiquitous "It Gets Better" projectfeature famous, "top" gays guaranteeing that a better life awaits all L's, G's, B's and T's if we hold our heads high. Pop star Adam Lambert advises not to give bullies "the power to affect you, [because] you’re letting them win." Actor Neil Patrick Harris says, “you can act with strength, you can act with courage... stand tall…be proud." And fashion designer Michael Kors assures us that if he wasn’t “different," he couldn’t be, um, Michael Kors. While these statements are all extremely well-intentioned, they beg the question, “for whom does it get better”? (For pop stars with a security team to ward off haters? For exceedingly famous actors who are lauded for “acting straight” and conforming to genderstereotypes? For Michael Kors?)

The latest group to get together and create an It Gets Better are a barrage of students from the prestigious Yale College.

If it is hazy for whom the victory bell of “It Gets Better” actually tolls, the NFL has made crystal clear for whom it does not: unestablished, openly LGBT folks for one, especially those hoping to play for the NFL. After last week’s report about an NFL prospect being asked if he “liked girls” during a scouting interview, the Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens player and equality advocate Brendan Ayanbadejo (whom I’vecommended elsewhere) stated, “I think players need to say that they’re straight right now…keep everything, so-called normal. And maybe later, once you’ve established yourself…maybe then players will be more comfortable to really be who they are." The recommendation to refrain from disclosing one's “gayness," either by what one says or how one says it--what I call “Don’t Act, Don’t Tell”—is most disappointing coming from an athlete and public figure who has used his platform tirelessly to promote equality. But Mr. Ayanbadejo is only the messenger here, reminding us of the reality that, in many cases, before things can truly get better, queer people are expected to cover ourselves in the jersey of a “normal” and score a touchdown of obvious success. Things may get better, but first, we must “win."

Now, this may seem to work for pop stars who don’t let the bullies “win," actors who can “act straight," football players who are good at lying(Manti T’eo?), and any other fortunate others whose “normal” qualities have buoyed them to great success. But what of the others, those who can’t “win”? Queer theorist Heather Love writes, “[O]ne may enter the mainstream on the condition that one breaks ties with all those who cannot make it." What, then, is in store for those of us pegged as "losers" even by the marginalized communities to which we belong?
In his paper, “Faggot=Loser,” psychoanalyst Ken Corbett illuminateshow we expel our anxieties of loss by projecting them into others, maintaining binaries of bigness and smallness, strength and weakness, winning and losing. (We might add to this list: bully and victim, straight and gay, normal and queer, established celebrity and unestablished nobody, he for whom things get better and she for whom things do not.) Using a case example, Corbett emphasizes the value of allowing loss to take effect, the power of being recognized in our loss, and of recognizing it in ourselves. Corbett finds that through a mutual recognition of loss we may begin to believe in our own recovery from it, and in our capacity to engage in a life that gets better.
The “It Gets Better” project is a grand achievement, and the abundant and various non-famous voices on the website offer much neededempathy and recognition. But we might consider how unhelpfully easy the lucky, privileged, "normal" few can make hope sound. We might consider how easily all of us can get ahead of ourselves, and who we leave behind as a result. Must we become winners to avoid being losers, and if so, who becomes the losers? Can we instead make room for our own losses, to allow our lives, as philosopher Judith Butler proposes, to be “grievable” and, in the words of psychoanalyst Adrienne Harris, to find a way for our experience to be “narratizable, coherent, recognized, not disavowed”?
Fortunately several famous "winners" have called attention to the palpable loss in queer communities. In a speech accepting an award from the Human Rights Campaign last year, Oscar-winning actress Sally Field spoke about her gay son’s wish to be “normal” like his brothers, and how she supported him through his painful struggle to accept his differences. Similarly, in his "It Gets Better" video, out actor Zachary Quinto conveys a genuine recognition of the tragedy, despair, and hopelessness that pervades many LGBT lives, suggesting that in order to move forward we must first, as Heather Love says,"feel backward."
There is much to be gained by sharing loss, and much that is lost by shielding ourselves with gains. When our losses are recognized we can face our own wounds in the looking glass, and become empowered to move through to the other side. We must believe that we exist as we are, before we can believe in getting better.
Copyright Mark O'Connell, L.C.S.W.References
Butler, J. (2009), Frames of War: When Life is Grievable. London & New York, Verso.
Corbett, K. (2001), Faggot=loser. Studies in Gender & Sexuality, 2:3-28
Harris, A. (2009), Gender as Soft Assembly. New York, Routledge.
Love, H. (2007), Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

October 22, 2012

H.J. Heinz Co. products are displayed at a grocery store in Chicago, Illinois.

Dover Public Safety Director Richard Roselltold the newspaper that renters in the private warehouse called attention to the bug problem, which was traced to a 7,000 square foot space housing thousands of bottles of a familiar red condiment. The insect-drawing mess stemmed from packages that had exploded after sugars fermented alongside acidic tomatoes and vinegar and built up pressure in the bottles, the Star-Ledger notes.

Unattended bottles of ketchup have created an explosive situation in Dover, N.J. — both figuratively and literally. Warehouse tenants discovered an abandoned counterfeit ketchup enterprise in their building after bottles of the product created a mess that attracted flies, the Star-Ledger reports.

Heinz officials visited Dover last week and told the Star-Ledger that while the ketchup seems real, the packaging is deceptive. The company believes whoever was running the operation purchased vats of traditional Heinz Ketchup and transferred it into individual bottles for “Simply Heinz,” a more expensive variety. It is not known whether anything else was put into the bottles.

It appears that the fraudulent project was probably not a resounding success.

“The site of this operation was abandoned and had produced only a small quantity of bottles, much of which was still on site,” Michael Mullen, vice president of corporate and government affairs for Heinz, said in an e-mail the Star-Ledger. Mullen wrote that such incidents are normally rare because Heinz maintains rigorous production and packaging procedures to protect the sauce.

Although the Dover police are not yet involved, Mullen told the Star-Ledger that Heinz has teamed up with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigation to get to the bottom of the scheme.

“As a company dedicated to food safety and quality, Heinz will not tolerate illegal repackaging of our products and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who engages in such illicit behavior,” Mullen said to the newspaper.

The warehouse is leasing the space to a tenant called Joseph Carrera, and a man answering Carrera’s cell phone reportedly hung up on the Star-Ledger journalist who attempted to contact him.

Although stories of phony food products are relatively rare, Food Safety News reported last year that a third of honey in the United States may be tainted with antibiotics, heavy metals and other dilutors.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had just concluded his speech in the ballroom when roughly six protesters unraveled a large rainbow-colored American flag outside in the lobby and began chanting. Almost immediately several security guards grabbed the protesters to drag them outside. One protester in particular resisted, causing him and some of the security guards to fall to the floor.

TheBlaze spoke with one of the activists afterward who identified himself as Charles Butler with the gay rights organization Get Equal.

“The first guy put me in a headlock and I was losing consciousness. That’s why I fell the first time,” Butler said.

Asked whether he felt Get Equal had accomplished anything, Butler said, “I think it’s too early to tell. … We‘re trying to call into question the organizers of this summit’s values and how they affect LGBT people,” he said. LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

“A lot of people don’t know about all of the stuff [Family Research Council President] Tony Perkins says about us. Calling us pedophiles,” Butler said, referring to a 2010 interview in which Perkins called pedophilia a “homosexual problem.”

A new spot takes the Family Research Council's leader to task for demonizing gays -- but the network won't show it

For the longest time, many of us have been raising hell over the fact that MSNBC hosts hate-group leader Tony Perkins (the Family Research Council)as authoritative voice without asking him about his organization’s history of lying in order to demonize the LGBT community.

Well now Faithful America has come out with an awesome ad which best speaks to the point. Only MSNBC rejected this ad. Therefore, I guess it’s up to us to spread its message:

My guess is that Perkins will whine about how supposedly the left is trying to silence him and other people of faith. In actuality, I don’t want him silenced. I want there to be a conversation about the entire issue.

The Forest Needs help

Adamfoxie Blog Int. (Click the Fox-please)

Adam Gonzalez, Publisher

ONE 💔

ONE (RED) Join The Campaign Vs.AIDS

Free for Nonprofit

If you are known non-profit dealing with LGBT health issues, world hunger, and some health issues in general, We will give you a free spot showing in all 13 pages of this site. You can contact the publisher at adamfoxie@Gmail.comWe reserve the right to choose how this nonprofit fits this media blogging site